1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to wireless communication systems and in particular to real time communication among a plurality of wireless communication devices within a wireless communication system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Historically, wireless communication devices, such as pagers, have had the ability to receive a message sent from a wireless communication system, and perform standard functions in response to the message receipt such as storing the message, displaying the message, or alerting the user of receipt of the message. The messages are typically a numeric message such as a phone number, or an alphanumeric message containing one unique piece of information such as xe2x80x9cmeeting in my office at 6:00 pm.xe2x80x9d The user is alerted of receipt of a new message by an audible alert or a vibratory alert. The display of many wireless communication devices includes a message indicator for each message it has received and stored in memory.
Today""s wireless communication devices are no longer restricted to these standard functions. For example, two-way pagers optimize productivity in a portable package. Two-way pagers function as regular full-text pagers, communicate wirelessly with other pagers, and send and receive e-mail. In many two-way pagers, the combination of an easy to use graphic user interface (GUI), QWERTY keyboard, software programmability, application interface, address book, customizable menu, PC connectivity, and large memory make them ideal for enhanced functionality.
Two-way paging protocols are optimized for one-to-one messaging. Utilizing two-way paging protocols, a first wireless communication device can send a message to another wireless communication device; and the recipient of the message can reply to the sender. The first wireless communication device can also send the same message to a plurality of wireless communication devices; and receive individual replies from each device. In this manner, real time communication between two wireless communication devices is achieved.
One drawback of the current two-way paging systems is the inability to send the complete recipient list to every wireless communication device receiving the same message when a message is sent to a plurality of wireless communication devices. This leads to difficulty for an individual recipient to reply to not only the original sender but also all other recipients of the message.
A second drawback of the current two-way paging systems when a message is sent to a plurality of wireless communication devices is that even if a person did know the people to reply to the system would have to send an individual page to each of them. For example, when a message is sent to five other wireless communication devices, five individual messages must be encoded and sent over the air. Optionally, a temporary news service address could be set up by the infrastructure, but this would take additional time to page each wireless communication device; and add it to the news service group before sending out the message.
Chat functions are very popular on the Internet. Chat functions allow the simultaneous access to a message or set of messages by multiple users, with each user capable of inputting a message or set of messages to the chat. The message is related to the devices (typically computers) of the other users who have chosen to participate in that chat. Then the other users can respond with their own messages, which are likewise relayed to all the devices. In this manner, chat functions offer real time conversations between users.
The sophisticated design of wireless communication devices today makes them ideal for wireless communication of chat conversations. However, the drawbacks as described previously of current two-way paging protocols and systems make it burdensome to implement a chat conversation with three or more wireless communication devices.
What is needed is a method and apparatus in which a plurality of wireless communication devices can communicate efficiently and in substantially real time with all other wireless communication devices within a particular group to implement chat functions wirelessly.